Regarding A-merc ammo.

T

Thesenator

New member
To find the most satisfactory answers to every question you will ever have about Amerc brass, try reloading some.

You will quickly see why it ends up as scrap.
 
L

ledavatar

New member
You know, I read about the A-Merc stuff, and picked up a bunch of once fired ones in 9mm at the range just try reloading to see what the fuss was all about...

The 9mm cases ALL had a crushed side from the extractor - it seems like a weak cartridge base to begin with. When I load them, it would seem to be harder on the sizer than other brands, but I loaded all of them just fine with no primer insertion problems. My Glock 19 doesn't seem to do any damage to the case base, so I gather it might have been due to the Hi-Point 9mm carbine that my range rents.

I also have a bunch of A-Merc factory new .44special. After shooting 2 boxes, I count 5 cases that had split necks and had to toss them. I haven't reloaded them yet, but if once fired cases have already have a 5% failure rate, I can't imagine reloading these too many times.

I'd say, if you got them, shoot em, but don't bother reloading them as it's not worth the trouble. I didn't know what military crimp was either until i crushed a couple of primers trying to force them into a crimped case.
 
J

Johnny Guest

Moderator in Memoriam
AMERC is utter trash

It's difficult to find an almost universal consenus amongst handloaders. It's possible to accomplish a given chore in so many different ways, there'll usually be a wide difference of opinion about a given topic. One nearly unanimous vote though, is that A-Merc, either loaded ammo OR empty brass, is NOT GOOD STUFF.

Click on a few of the following threads. Note the wide range of dates and geographical locales represented. You can draw your own conclusions.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=190369&highlight=A-merc

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthrea...ghlight=A-Merc

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthrea...ghlight=A-Merc

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...ghlight=A-Merc

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...ghlight=A-Merc

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...ghlight=A-Merc

Or, run your own search.

Best,
Johnny
 
S

snuffy

New member
I picked up, what appeared to be a loaded 9mm round at an ipsc shoot. It was still loaded, an a-merc case without a primer, or a flash hole!

Apparently what happened is the firing pin fired the primer, with nowhere for the force to go, it backed the primer out of the pocket! Yeah, good stuff! I like my glock too much to shoot apcray like that!
 
C

cpaspr

New member
Thanks Johnny Guest, and everyone else.

Only the first link worked, the other 5 appear to be too old, since they were also linked from the first one. But I get the drift. Any A-mercs I come across will go bye-bye.
 
M

mfree

New member
To recap, I believe A-merc is using substandard brass and therefore using more of it, i.e. much thicker case walls.

We've seen two damaged pistols at the range due to this stuff, and a slew of other malf's, plus at least one range fire due to spat lumps of burning powder, and that was enough for us to ban it. I personally tried some 158gr 9mm that was handed in for disposal and found a 33% failure rate, mostly squibs, and thankfully due to the thick cases the bullets were undersized and managed to make it out of the barrel every time. I do believe one of the damaged guns, a rather nice custom 1911, blew due to firing after a partial squib.

You can take .45 A-merc and roll it, and watch the case rim relief cut wander up and down the case a full 1/16".
 
R

Rico567

New member
I get the occasional A-merc case (fortunately, only a few!) and I ensure no one else will have a bad experience by crushing the case mouth with a pliers. As far as that stuff is concerned, being crushed for scrap is its finest hour.
 
G

gwalchmai

New member
I sort my brass by headstamp, but I didn't when I first started reloading. Invariably, when a case wouldn't accept a primer or would get crushed seating a bullet I'd pull it out and find it to be A-MERC. Now I sort my brass and crush all the A-MERC casemouths and toss them into the scrap bin.

"Their finest hour" - that's great! :p
 
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